Like M L King, I also had a dream.
A dream to go cruising.
If you are a Great Lakes sailor, about all you can do is dream and
read about cruising during those cold winter Ohio nights while
waiting for spring.
Many a cold winter's evening was spent dreaming and looking at boat
plans during those years.
I got tired of cold weather, short sailing season and just plain
needed a change of scenery, so I came to SoCal (Southern California),
at the end of 12/89, ready to start the new decade of the 90's, and
chase my dreams.
Every spare minute was spent walking the docks, looking at boats, and
dreaming of going cruising.
As I was looking at boat ads in SoCal, came across a Roberts 53 hull
that had been stretched to 55 ft.
It was a center cockpit design with a balsa cored hull and deck.
Ten (10) of these boats had been built.
This one had the bulkheads, floors and deck completed.
This was a project boat, something I had once thought about, but that
was about it.
I needed a 55 ft boat like a moose needs a hat rack, but something
about this boat grabbed me and said, "Come here big guy, you are
mine".
Even as a project boat, that boat grabbed me like no other boat had
ever done.
That hull was sold before I could get my act together, but the die was
cast.
Probably just as well, never liked balsa core anyway.
It's cheap, but after that, it is all down hill.
My landlord said to me one day, "Lew, you are never going to be
happy until you build your own boat. Why not quit fooling around and
get started?"
Good question.
As a professional engineer who had spent most of his adult life in the
industrial market place involved with building things, boat
construction wasn't unique, just a different kind of construction.
The engineering principles were very straight forward.
Avoid the temptation to cut corners, and you stay out of trouble.
Building a boat could be fun, and it is/was.
And so it would be, I would build a boat. Not any boat, but a Blue
Water, go any where, Roberts 53, stretched to 55 ft by enlarging the
line drawings 5% at the graphic arts copy shop.
(This produces a boat that is 15% larger)
(Roberts has released a version which duplicates what I did).
Later I would learn that the Roberts 53 was very popular. I managed to
visit several completed boats that were docked between Santa Barbara
and San Diego, including one that was built in New Zealand and sailed
to San Diego.
If I worked fast, there was still time to finish and enjoy before I
got too old.
I could beat the odds and not become an old man before finishing the
boat.
I haven't finished but the journey has been great.
After all, it is the journey, not the destination that is important.
I did a lot of hard work and had a lot of fun doing it.
Now it is time for some one else to assume command and complete the
journey.
Are you that person?
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